But the qualified successes of "Gossip Girl" and "90210" have given CW a foothold on a desirable marketing demographic and quieted, at least for now, talk that co-owners CBS Corp. and Warner Bros. might shutter the network. "I think the built-in assumption and the expectation is that the CW is here to stay," Bruce Rosenblum, president of Warner Bros. Television Group, told the trade Television Week earlier this year.

In fairness, he did point out elsewhere that that the small gains within adults 18-34 haven’t offset the broader losses, and he talked about the Sunday night issues with MRC, but to call 90210 a “qualified success” seems a bit of a reach, even if it has already been renewed.

I like the CW, and the people we deal with there have been nothing but nice to us. Moreover, Dawn Ostroff's approach to running the network whips many people up into a froth, and frankly, that just makes covering things more fun for us! And yeah, I'm just happy that CW is bringing back Supernatural, so I really honestly don't care what it does with the rest of its schedule!

But despite all that, I'll say what I haven't seen covered elsewhere (which doesn't mean it wasn't, only that I haven't seen it): CW's best week in months last week can be attributed in large part to a dearth of new programming on cable, and particularly the shows that typically are the CW's serious competition, like The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family which won't be back with new episodes until June.

Dawn and crew should be sending flowers to ABC Family for that, because Secret Life routinely trounces Gossip Girl in head-to-head competition in the age and gender demos Gossip Girl covets. Gossip Girl gets the rest of its season off from that competition which clearly is helping its ratings.